A Weekend In Hiroshima

On Friday October 16th a group of Kansai Gaidai students and myself took the night bus to Hiroshima to see an atomic bomb survivor speak the following afternoon.  We went to Osaka earlier in the evening on Friday to attend a Korean street festival before taking the night bus.  The Korean festival was awesome.  There was so much energy in all the participants.  There were two mobile shrines that were being pushed around and on the occasion would spin in circles.  I ate a ton of confections that night including candied apples, candied strawberries, and little hard candies.  They were all delicious. 

Eventually we boarded the night bus after the festival.  The night bus was so nice, the seats reclined all the way back and were extremely comfortable.  We arrived at about 6:00AM and started walking towards the Peace Memorial Museum, where the speech would be.  We got there super early so Maria, Courtney, and I found the hostel and dropped our bags off.  We were pretty hungry and stumbled upon the most adorable European style cafe owned by an older Japanese couple.  We sat down and all got the breakfast special.  It had a delicious piece of buttered toast, a hard boiled egg, a piece of apple and banana, and the best coffee I have had in all of Japan.  Japan has excellent coffee also, but this coffee was ichiban.  After we were filled with sustenance, we went to see the Atomic Bomb Dome which is a building that survived the bombing and is known for its skeletal dome.  Next we headed to Hiroshima Castle.  On our way there we came across a Shichi-Go-San festival.  The festival is a right of passage where 3, 5, and 7 year old children dress up in traditional clothes and headdresses.  The children were so precious, I can't even describe how adorable so just look at the pictures.  We made it to Hiroshima Castle which was stunning.  After hanging around for a little bit, we headed back towards the Peace Memorial Museum for the speaker.

I was apprehensive to see the speaker to be completely honest.  To listen to the horrible experience she went through would be very difficult, but I knew it was something I had to do.  A sweet looking old Japanese lady was on stage.  She started by telling us she had a stroke a few years prior and still traveled the world telling her story.  She also told us that she taught herself English with the sole reason of sharing her story.  Her story was very sad as when the bomb dropped on Hiroshima she was only 12.  She remembered everything she felt at the time and the innocence of a child came through in her words.  It was a devastating story.  After she partially recovered from her life threatening injuries, she still faced many hardships.  She was treated as an outsider in society due to being a bomb survivor.  People assumed she was radioactive and kept their distance.  It was also impossible for her to find a job or husband.  I couldn't believe everything she had been through.  She closed her speech by demanding the disarmament of nuclear weapons across the globe.  She was such a strong woman and I was very moved by her. 

After the speech, we picked up some food from a grocery store and went back to the hostel for a nap.  We woke up and went to a small festival nearby.  So many festivals!  We then headed out to find dinner somewhere.  After wandering around a little, we stumbled upon a little izakaya on a small side street.  As we were looking at the menu for recognizable kanji a waiter came outside and escorted us in.  The inside was awesome.  It was decorated in post WWII advertisements, toys, and music of the same era was playing.  We got a table enclosed by rice paper screens, it was really nice.  We ate some izakaya favorites, yakitori, tofu, fried cheese, cabbage, etc.  I'm going to miss izakayas when I return to the states.  We mozied back to the hostel and crashed for the night. 

We woke up the next morning with the hopes of going to our favorite Hiroshima cafe again, but much to our dismay, they were closed.  We ate breakfast somewhere else and our large group headed for Miyajima.  Miyajima is an island in Hiroshima Prefecture that is well known for the Itsukushima Shrine.  Itsukushima Shrine has one of the most recognizable torii in all of Japan due to its large size and location in the Seto Inland Sea.  We took a ferry to the island on one of the most beautiful days I have seen.  We had no plans and the day was quite relaxing.  Miyajima, like Nara, is home to many wild, tame deer.  These deer were very bold about getting food from tourists and it was a common sight to see someone surrounded by four or five deer.  I pet and hugged any deer that would let me.  We walked to the torii and since it was low tide we could walk right underneath it.  It was such a beautiful day and the torii was gorgeous.  We continued to walk around Miyajima and I partook in the local delicacy, oysters!  I started with a skewer of the most mouthwatering fried oysters drizzled with a touch of lemon juice and then moved onto the big guns - fresh oysters cooked in their shells over a charcoal grill.  AMAZING!  I was in flavor country.  While walking through town, I saw my first tanuki, or actually a family of them.  They are Japanese raccoon dogs and part of Japanese folklore.  I had seen many tanuki statues in Japan so I was excited to see a live one in person.  We made our way through town back to the sea wall to watch the sun set.  It was the perfect close to an excellent day.